Andy Chan's Blog for Parents, Mentors and Teachers

The First Year Chipotle Challenge

A key objective of our office is to engage first year students right at the start of their college experience. We know that introducing first years to the OPCD’s friendly staff and valuable resources in our office will significantly increase the likelihood of them returning to our office when they need help throughout their college years.

At Orientation back in August, we introduced the entire first year class to the OPCD via an interactive presentation in Wait Chapel. To grab their attention and take action, our marketing team designed a clever competition to encourage all first years to register on DeaconSource, our online source for career-related information. DeaconSource enables all Wake Forest students to receive tailored information targeted to their specific career interests, as well as access internships and jobs from organizations who want to recruit Wake Forest students.

The competition: The first three residence floors to have 100% of students registered for DeaconSource would receive a free Chipotle dinner on us! This announcement elicited a gasp from all the students who love Chipotle; a popular off campus Mexican food restaurant.

Over the next four months, we kept track of each hall’s progress on the glass walls of our office and on our WFU OPCD Facebook page.By November, three floors had successfully completed the challenge! About 100 residents from Bostwick, Collins and Johnson first year residence halls were rewarded for their efforts with a Chipotle dinner in our office this past month.

Our staff enjoyed dining and getting to know these proactive students. Many of them reported that they had already been in to meet with a career counselor or get their resume reviewed. I’m pleased to report that currently 45% of first years are on DeaconSource! We are thrilled that so many first year students are getting regular information from us to help them with their academic and major decisionmaking, are aware of our resources and have become engaged with our office.

If your student is not yet on DeaconSource, remind them to get connected. It’s a very simple process that will pay off for them when they are ready. We can help first year students think about their choice of major and how it will connect with potential careers, and we can help them if they want to find an internship this summer. They can meet a counselor at any time – they don’t have to have it all figured out on their own.